Artist Dan Bendel makes binocular sculptures based on View-Master, the old toy with circular slides. You look through them to create your own images. He draws from Flintstones cartoons and arcade games, preferring tactile, handmade work over pre-designed technology that can distance him from the making.
To your, what are these, goggles? I don't mean to insult you.
Well, they're binoculars. This has come from the idea. I shall show you. This is not the original one, but what influenced this was, were these. I cribbed the idea, or borrowed the idea, off Disney from the Viewmaster. So you basically, you know, you're going through images of Disney, clicking through, and you've got a circular disc. So they're like binoculars. I came up with these, a bit bigger, and you've got slides and then you've got images these. So you do the same, put them up to your eyes, up to the light, and you turn around images inside, in a way forming your own images. In earlier pieces I had slides all the way down the trunk of the binoculars, and you could move slides in and out. That's right, yeah. To form your own. Those were earlier ideas. But this is something I want to develop more. And then there's the ones with sound. You can hear. You put them over and then you've got images. Images in there.
What I also quite like about these is the slightly I mean, that one actually is quite accomplished. But I quite like them when they're slightly, not anti-technology, but they're primitive, aren't they? It's a bit like in The Flintstones or something. Well, yeah, I mean, let's not dismiss the influence of The Flintstones on—
Well, no, I watched it as a kid, but I mean, I wouldn't say But I'd say there's no— I mean, that's fair enough, that's your opinion, but I mean, my influence would be, you know, like arcades. I mean, they had a big influence on me because I went to Lime Edges and went looking into, you know, all those sort of things to do with arcades.
So I mean, do you see these— Do you see these pieces evolving and using contemporary technology? Would you like to use contemporary technology?
Well, this is something, yeah, that's possibly, I mean, that's another influence, like sort of virtual reality. Virtual reality, thank you. They influenced this idea as well. But it's my own reality. But I've always been I'm slightly dubious about using technology because you're not making it yourself. It's become their sort of design. And the size of, you know, whatever, it's pre-designed. If you know what I mean. Well, I'm struggling here.
Yeah, I know. But there are artists though who collaborate with, I mean, you know, with technology.
Yeah. Well, like people like Nam June Paik, for instance. Right. Who made video, well, he made TV sculptures and had videos going on inside the TVs. There's people like him who I was quite influenced by.
